For manufacturing a typical vehicle body, stamped steel plate parts are welded together at a body welding line to prepare several subassemblies, and the subassemblies are assembled to provide a white body. After the white body is painted at a body painting line, equipments are assembled to the painted body at a body rigging line, completing the vehicle body.
A vehicle door to be assembled to a vehicle body is mainly constituted by a door outer panel arranged on an exterior side thereof and a door inner panel arranged on an interior side thereof. Both panels are stamped steal plate parts. The door outer panel and the door inner panel are assembled in a door subassembly by hemming and spot-welding at the body welding line. After the door subassembly is assembled to the body through hinges, painting including electrocoating, intermediate coating and finish coating is applied to the door subassembly at the body painting line. The reason why such painting is carried out with the door subassembly assembled to the body is that the door is prevented from having a different tone of color from the body. Finally, door equipments such as a door widow glass and a window regulator are assembled to the door at the body rigging line.
With regard to such a vehicle door made of stamped steal plates, attaching the door equipments is carried out in such a situation that the door subassembly assembled to the body has been completely painted i.e. that the door outer panel 2 has the door inner panel 3 attached to an interior side thereof and a sash 4 joined thereto to provide a vehicle door panel 1 as shown in FIG. 5. It is usual that the required door equipments are assembled to the door through an access opening 5 formed in the door inner panel 3.
When the door equipments, in particular, large parts such as the window regulator are assembled to the door through the narrow access opening 5 in the door inner panel 3, it is necessary to carry out assembly into the door, handling such large parts at the body rigging line. This operation has required a lot of time and could damage the completely painted body. The attaching operation of such large parts through the narrow access opening involves complicated steps. It is extremely difficult to automatize the operation even if e.g. an excellent industrial robot is used.
There have been some proposals wherein door equipments are attached to a single plate to provide a module and the module is attached to a door panel. These proposal can eliminate the complication caused by attachment of the respective door equipments through the access opening in a door inner panel.
For Example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,585 has proposed that door equipments be integrally formed with a module plate to provide a door module and the door module is attached to a door panel. In this proposal, the door inner panel has an opening formed therein, and the door module is inserted into the door panel through the opening in the door inner panel, improving ease in door attachment.
In the door disclosed in the U.S. patent, a cavity is provided between the inner panel and an outer panel and the door module is mounted in the cavity. Since the opening is formed in the inner panel as stated, the door module can be inserted into the cavity through the opening to be mounted in the cavity. The door module is attached in the cavity by lifting the door module from a lower end toward an upper end of the opening to insert a door window glass into a belt line formed between the inner panel and the outer panel as shown in the drawings of the U.S. patent.
In order to handle the door module for inserting it into the opening in the operation for inserting and attaching of the door module, two-dimensional movement or three-dimensional movement in some instances is required. Specifically, the door module is moved in a direction perpendicular to a surface of the opening (a direction for advancing the door module toward the opening: a first direction) and a direction in parallel with the surface of the opening (a direction from the lower end of the opening toward the belt line: a second direction) until the door module has been mounted into the cavity. The movement of the door module in the vicinity of the opening is one that is at least a combination of the movement in the first direction and that in the second direction.
Such movement of the door module is a bar to automatize the manufacture of vehicles including doors. Rapid and simple assembly of doors by a robot in an assemble line for vehicles can significantly contribute to automation of the manufacture of the vehicles. However, the movement which is constituted by combined movement in a plurality of directions is complicated. It is not easy to carry out attachment of such a door module into the cavity by use of a robot.
In the door disclosed in the U.S. patent, the door module as a whole becomes a large part due to the integration of the door equipments thereto. For this reason, it is necessary to cope with the problem as stated, which is inherent to the large part in handling the large part for attachment, and which is not created when the door equipments are independently mounted as usual. Since the door according to the U.S. patent is proposed without considering the problem due to an increase of the part size, it is not possible to improve the assembling operation for the door though the door equipments are integrally formed with the module plate.
On the other hand, it is usual that the vehicle door has e.g. a door lock attached thereto. Since the door lock projects toward the vehicle body, the door lock is attached to a rear end of the door inner panel so as to provide a projection. This means that if the door lock is integrally formed with the door module, the three-dimensional movement as stated earlier is required. If attachment of the door lock is carried out after the door module has been mounted to the door panel, it is not possible to contribute to simplification in the operation.
In order to cope with this problem, a structure wherein the door module is inserted from a front end with respect to the door panel is appropriate. Such structure has been disclosed in e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,636. However, this structure has required that hinges for opening and closing the door be attached to the door module. This creates a problem in that the attaching arrangement for the hinges which plays an important role for opening and closing the door can not ensure sufficient strength. If e.g. attaching position of the hinges is adjusted to solve this problem, mounting adjustment between the contour of the door itself and a door opening in the vehicle body becomes difficult.
In order to cope with this problem, it has been proposed that the door outer panel is formed from a synthetic resin and the door equipments are mounted to a skeleton sandwiched between the door outer panel and the door inner panel to improve the door assembling operation (see e.g. JP-A-6353112).
In the vehicle door disclosed in the publication, the skeleton has a window glass sash, and the skeleton is mounted to a body through hinges, functioning as the main portion of the door. Since the door inner panel and the door outer panel work as only covers for covering the interior side and the exterior side of the skeleton, there is created a problem in that the operation for handling the door equipments in attaching the door equipment the skeleton degrades.
If a fault in the door equipment is found after the skeleton has been attached to the body (irrespectively of prior to and after completion of the vehicle), or if maintenance of the door equipments is carried out in the future, it is difficult to carry out repairing operation without additional operation since the door equipments have already been mounted to the skeleton. In such a case, if the skeleton itself is removed from the body, poor handling of the skeleton makes the repairing operation for the door equipments difficult because the skeleton functions as the main portion of the door.
Since the skeleton functions the main portion of the door with the door window glass sash as explained, each type of car necessarily requires preparation of a skeleton suited to the shape of the car. It is difficult to cope with users' car demand which requires a variety of sizes in small run as a recent significant trend, production control is complicated. Since the attachment of the outer panel is carried out after the skeleton has been attached to the body, painting must be carried out with the door equipments assembled to the skeleton in order to match the outer panel with the body in terms of a tone of color. This means that door equipment are exposed to a paint.
It is an object to the present invention to eliminate the problem of the prior art and to provide a vehicle door and a method for assembling the same capable of improving the assembling operation for door equipment.